Chase Stokes and Sydney Taylor are two people whose years of knowing each other is exploding into something new in Marked Men: Rule + Shaw. The movie serves as an adaptation of Jay Crownover’s Rule, part of the тιтular novel series, and chronicles the stories of Rule Archer and Shaw Landon, a rebellious tattoo artist and pre-med student from a wealthy family. Though having been a part of each other’s lives for a long time, Shaw has kept secret the feelings she has for Rule, but finally decides to push through and put everything on the table.

Alongside Stokes and Taylor, the ensemble Marked Men: Rule + Shaw cast includes Bad Boys: Ride or Die‘s Alexander Ludwig, Resident Evil‘s Ella Balinska, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines‘ Natalie Alyn Lind, Gossip Girl‘s Evan Mock and No Hard Feelings‘ Matthew Noszka. While the movie generally ventures down an upbeat, yet dramatic, path, it also provides Stokes and Taylor with a variety of unique acting challenges, including balancing a faithfulness to the books and filming some intimate sequences.

Ahead of the movie’s release, ScreenRant interviewed Chase Stokes and Sydney Taylor to discuss Marked Men: Rule + Shaw, how much they turned to Crownover’s source material to inform their performances, the evolution of Rule and Shaw’s relationship as the movie progresses, how they built a trust with one another and director Nick Cᴀssavetes for filming the intimate scenes, and an update on Outer Banks season 5’s development.

Stokes & Taylor Were Not Familiar With The Book Before Filming

“…if you’re going to make an adaptation, I think it needs to be adapted.”

ScreenRant: Sydney, if you’d like to start, and then Chase. Obviously, this comes from the world of Jay Crownover’s novel series, and I’m curious if either of you were familiar with the books prior to being approached for the film, or if you found that you dove right in when you learned about the movie being in the works?

Sydney Taylor: I hadn’t heard of the books, no, but during my audition process, I got the book. I got a physical copy of the book, and started reading that. I read a lot, so I started going through and highlighting different things that really resonated with me, and making different notes in my sides of things I wanted to add in from the book to the script and things like that. I brought the book with me to Bulgaria, and I referenced it a lot throughout filming.

Of course, you don’t want to hold on to it too тιԍнт. I think if you’re going to make an adaptation, I think it needs to be adapted. If you’re going to do the exact same thing, then you might as well just keep the book. But I think that the differences throughout the film and the book I really love, and I think that it’s what makes the movie so special, is that it is a little bit different, but still the same world and the same characters that everybody loves, the same story. I just think that we got to put our own spin on it, which I’m really grateful for.

Chase Stokes: Yeah, I hadn’t heard of the novels. When I was approached for this project, I was happily surprised to dive into it, and Jay’s fingerprints are all over the movie. And what an incredible human to allow Nick to put his two cents in on it, and she was very pleased with the final product. It was really nice to know that the author had a lot of input on the project.

Marked Men certainly isn’t the first adaptation of a romance novel, nor is it director Nick Cᴀssavetes’ first, having previously helmed 2004’s The Notebook. Even still, as pointed out by Taylor and Stokes above, the film aims for a nice balance of faithfully translating Crownover’s novel to the screen and offering enough original storytelling to surprise fans of the source material.

The Evolution Of Rule & Shaw’s Relationship Is A Lot About Acceptance

“…accepting somebody for their flaws, and not asking them to change, but just asking them to adjust…”

So, obviously, your guys’ relationship is the core of this film, but I love how it starts as your almost family-like friends, but then it develops into something further. What was it like finding that initial connection that Rule and Shaw have, and then developing it from there with each other?

Chase Stokes: Yeah, it’s in the source material, it’s in the book that they were always kind of coexisting, but not really existing. So, having that to kind of rely on, and having somebody at the helm like Nick Cᴀssavetes, who is helping you find those ebbs and flows, you can’t ask for a better person to do it. But I think Syd and I just cared deeply about telling the story, and I don’t want to speak for her, but I just knew that giving a new spin on what love could look like from two people who are probably more similar than they’d like to admit, but are walking in different lanes of life. What does that look like? And accepting somebody for their flaws, and not asking them to change, but just asking them to adjust, so to speak.

Sydney Taylor: Yeah, definitely, I think that with their relationship, specifically, you’re right that they were coexisting. They weren’t necessarily friends, but they had been in each other’s lives for so long that they had such a great foundational understanding of each other that when things did transfer over into a more complicated relationship, they did have that foundation that not everybody gets to have.

You don’t get to know you know your partner for five or six years before you get together, usually, and that’s such a beautiful thing that they have that aided their relationship so much. They understood each other so greatly before anything physical happened, that there was no judgment clouding their love for each other, because they loved each other so much as people first, which I think is so rare, and what made their relationship work so much.

Rule and Shaw’s relationship certainly starts off in the film on a different note than most romances, with the two close enough for her to interrupt an intimate morning with a woman, yet not enough for them to share each others’ secrets. As Taylor and Stokes indicate above, this foundation proves to be a more meaningful start to their relationship in that they “understood each other so greatly“, which made it easier for them to fall in love as the film progresses.

Stokes Put A Lot Of Trust In Cᴀssavetes For Capturing Rule’s Flaws

“…I felt really safe kind of stepping into this…”

So Chase, I’ll turn back to you, because we talk about characters with flaws, and Rule is certainly one who has that heart of gold, but he has so much weighing him down that it’s hard to break through that. What is that like for you, from the performance side, really finding that balance between the lighter sides of him, as well as those really heartbreaking sides?

Chase Stokes: Sure, I think trusting on instinct was a big thing on this one. The nuance of the character, and finding the places where you can allow those little pockets of light to come out, and letting the audience in a little bit, but not fully letting them in, and really finding the timing of that, and honestly having the trust in your director and your scene partners to let that kind of go.

And that’s, I think, just a testament to the script, the world that was created for us, and I felt really safe kind of stepping into this, and a lot of freedom, truthfully, to play and to bring this character to life. So it was a real joy, honestly, to find those moments and to know that I was safe with Nick and Syd and letting Rule come to life.

As indicated by his character description of being a “rebellious” tattoo artist, Rule comes with a lot of flaws in Marked Men, namely that he’s holding on to a traumatic event from his past involving the death of a family member, whom Shaw also knew. Throughout the film, he gradually lets his walls down and is vulnerable to Shaw, though there are also plenty of moments in which he pushes everyone away, and based on what Stokes shared above, it’s clear a lot of that came from building trust with Cᴀssavetes and Taylor.

Taylor Felt Very Lucky With How “Safe” She Felt For The Film’s Intimate Scenes

“…it’s unfortunately so common for people to get taken advantage of…”

So, Sydney, I’ll turn back to you, because this is sort of your first real R-rated project, and there are some intimate scenes in this. I’d love to hear from your perspective what it was like finding that trust with Chase, with Nick, with the crew to really be able to make those scenes feel real, but also make them feel like they’re still you, and you feel safe, because those can be very vulnerable scenes to film.

Sydney Taylor: We had a lovely intimacy coordinator named Corrin, who I’m still friends with to this day. So, that was very crucial for me, especially being so young, and it’s unfortunately so common for people to get taken advantage of, or get pressured into things that they don’t want to do. So having that middle man always at your side was really great for me. I felt very safe with Nick, the director, as well as Chase. They both made a really big effort to make sure that I felt comfortable in every way, and moment to moment, even.

Just because you were okay with something 10 minutes ago, if something shifts, it’s okay to say something, and I did feel very safe to do so. And then, in actually performing the scenes, it is so mechanical, it’s literally choreographed. The intimacy coordinator meets with the director, they talk about what they want the scene to look like. They talk about what the sH๏τs are going to be. You work everything out like a dance, you go through everything. You make sure you’re okay, that each person is okay. We checked on each other all the time, so I had a really good experience.

There was nothing that I could say negatively about that process, even though it can be so uncomfortable and difficult to be so vulnerable on camera when you know that the crew are behind the closed door. Luckily, it was a closed set, but it can be difficult to wrestle with the fact that people are going to see you in that way. But I just think as an actor, you just sort of have to put that behind you and know that you have a vulnerable job and that this aids in telling the story, and telling the story was really important to me.

The filming process for intimate and Sєx scenes has become a major point of discussion in recent years, particularly as older actors have criticized the inclusion of intimacy coordinators on sets, describing them as restricting and a hindrance. Even still, it’s clear Marked Men‘s hiring of Corrin Evans went a long way to helping Taylor feel comfortable filming said scenes for the film, as did Cᴀssavetes and Stokes’ frequent checking in on her during filming.

Stokes Doesn’t Have Any Outer Banks Season 5 Updates Yet

“…I think the writers are diligently working away…”

I see I’m coming up on time, so Chase, I want to turn back to you. As someone who lives in South Carolina, I am eager for the final chapter of Outer Banks. I’m curious to hear, have you heard any updates on when cameras might begin rolling for season 5?

Chase Stokes: No rumble in the jungle. Netflix likes to keep things very тιԍнт-lipped, so we’re waiting patiently. I think, obviously, we want to finish this story in the ways that, hopefully, the world also wants us to do it right. So, I think the writers are diligently working away to figure out how to close this chapter of TV and move on to the next. So, nothing yet, but I’m sure, sooner than later, for sure.

With Outer Banks season 5 having just been confirmed in November, it may not come as entirely of a surprise that Stokes hasn’t heard any proper updates on when filming will begin for the final season of the Netflix show. Even still, his ᴀssurance that the writers want to nail the ending is sure to come as a welcome enough update for now for fans of the adventure drama.

About Marked Men: Rule + Shaw

Shaw (Taylor), a pre-med student, has loved Rule (Stokes), a rebellious tattoo artist, for years, though he’s only ever seen her as a family friend. After one uninhibited night, they’re forced to confront buried feelings while navigating grief, family expectations, and fear of commitment—testing whether love between two people from such different worlds can truly survive.

Source: ScreenRant Plus